It’s been a little over four years since Jeff Carlin became the head of global wealth at Nuveen, a US asset management firm managing US$1.3 trillion in assets. However, the potential for growth by shifting from a focus on US retail to the global wealth markets is just starting to emerge.

When Carlin started, Nuveen’s business outside the US was primarily institutional-driven. Although the firm had a wealth business, it was not a core focus. Building a dedicated wealth platform has since become a key priority.

“I was asked to put a business plan together so that we can have a purpose-built platform for the wealth market, not a platform that was an institutional platform that may appeal to the wealth advisors,” Carlin, senior managing director, global head of wealth distribution at Nuveen, told Asian Private Banker during his recent trip to Asia.

“There’s a massive growth opportunity for us in Asia, and we think Asia is a strong-growing region that we should participate in,” he said. The Asia Pacific region is set to become the world’s largest wealth hub by 2026, with its population of high net worth individuals projected to surge by nearly 60% between 2021 and 2026, Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2025 revealed.

Carlin also noted the similarities between how capital is allocated in the US and Asian markets, adding that as a US investor, Nuveen sees significant benefits in expanding its presence in Asia.

Alts is the main course 

Carlin shared that although Nuveen’s Asia wealth business starts with a small base, the firm has seen good progress in making strong moves into the private markets and scaling products for the asset class.

“We are seeing a lot of uptake in our private markets strategies in Asia, whether that’s private real estate or private direct lending,” Carlin said. He added that while Nuveen is known to be a real estate leader on the public side, the pickup on the public market side has been somewhat muted.

“We see a lot of the demand [on the private side]. So, our year-on-year, quarter-on-quarter, growth is quite strong, but it’s coming off a small base. But we’re fine with that, because we’re investing for the long term,” he said.

During his Asia trip, Carlin also noted conversations are often about increasing private market capabilities. “If you look at all the companies in the US that have US$100 million or more in EBITDA earnings, 90% of them are private. So, if you are investing in the public markets, you are only participating in one out of every 10 opportunities versus what you can do in the private markets.”

“The wrappers, like the semi-liquid wrappers that we have our private credit business in, or our private real estate has been, allow more investors to get access to these assets that they didn’t have access to before. And that’s what opening up the opportunity,” he explained.

Why Nuveen for senior secure lending? 

Nuveen’s semi-liquid product in the senior secure lending space for the wealth market, now about US$1 billion in size, is seeing robust inflows in Asia and is driven by its distinct focus on the middle market.

“Our parent company (TIAA) is one of the largest pension schemes in the world and we have been allocating on their behalf to private equity for the last 13 years […] We found that middle market direct lending or middle market private equity buyout shops were the best performing managers in the marketplace, both on a risk-adjusted basis,” Carlin said.

Nuveen has built deep relationships with leading private equity firms, securing “first look” opportunities for lending, co-investments, and secondary transactions, making it a primary source of capital in the middle market. Carlin also noted that Nuveen’s lending portfolio is notably different from those of the largest players, with only about 4% overlap in loans, compared to 40–60% overlap among the other big players in the market.

“On top of that, our parent company is investing side by side with them, so we have this strong alignment of interest. Not only do we get the deal flow by being the source of capital for all these middle market buyout shops, we overlay on top of that our own underwriting standards to make sure that we actually get really good terms and structure,” he said, adding that the yield profile and return profile are in line with all the other players.